In 2010, after 71 years in operation, Girl Scout Camp Birdsall Edey closed. As the final step in dissembling the scout camp, the camp bell was moved to Resting Waters, a Girl Scout Camp near Mt. Jewett in McKean County.

In April 2017, Resting Waters held its closing ceremony, leaving the bell to, once again, need a home.

Mary Putnam, long-time Girl Scout advocate, contacted Michelle Gray, Managing Director of the Warren County Historical Society, to determine if the bell complied with the necessary requirements to be accepted as an artifact and exhibited at the Wilder Museum of Warren County History.

As the result, on September 12, Merle Merritt retrieved the bell from Resting Waters and delivered it to the Wilder Museum of Warren County History where Mary Putnam and Linda Knapp availed their expertise in creating an informative exhibit honoring Warren County Girl Scouts.

The first Birdsall Edey bell originally belonged to the Struthers Independent Hose Company, rumored to have been salvaged out of a scrap pile during WWII, the girl scouts enlisted its use as the camp’s dinner bell. In 1973, Joseph DeFrees, began to realize his dream of creating a monument in honor of Warren’s local fire fighters, past and present, by erecting a bell tower in front of the Municipal Building, located at 318 West Third Avenue, Warren. Joseph DeFrees, having spent 30 plus years working to collect the three Warren fire station bells for a monument, negotiated a trade with the girl scouts. Dr. Roger Mesmer located a near duplicate of the Birdsall Edey bell in Stockton, N.Y.; Joseph DeFrees purchased the bell and the trade was made.

For more information on the DeFrees bells, please visit www.warrenhistory.org/edresources.html, and click on “City of Bells” brochure.

The Wilder Museum of Warren County History maintains hours of operation on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m. The Wilder Museum, located at 51 Erie Avenue in Irvine, is a seasonal facility closing for the year on October 7, 2017, and reopening in 2018 on May 15. For more information, please visit www.warrenhistory.org, or like us on Facebook.